Daily Readings for November 24, 2018

1st READING

We celebrate today the Vietnamese martyrs who gave their lives to share the faith and establish the Church in Vietnam. Let us pray for the Vietnamese people who still find it difficult to practice their faith due to the prohibitive policies of the government. May there be freedom of worship throughout the globe so that people can openly practice and nurture their faith.

Revelation 11:4-12

4 I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me: Here are my two witnesses: These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain. 6 They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish. 7 When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them. 8 Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,” where indeed their Lord was crucified. 9 Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried. 10 The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth. 11 But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.

P S A L M 

Psalm 144:1, 2, 9-10

R: Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!

1 Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war. (R) 2 My mercy and my fortress, my stronghold, my deliverer, my shield, in whom I trust, who subdues my peoples under me. (R) 9 O God, I will sing a new song to you; with a ten-stringed lyre I will chant your praise, 10 you who give victory to kings, and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword. (R)

GOSPEL 

Some of the ruses that the Sadducees and Pharisees use to trick Jesus stretch the bounds of belief. They attempt to find something they can use against Him concerning heresy or blasphemy so that they can silence Him and His message. They fail dismally and are ineffectual as history shows.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel.

Luke 20:27-40

27 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, 28 saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. 30 Then the second 31 and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” 34 Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; 35 but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. 37 That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; 38 and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” 39 Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” 40 And they no longer dared to ask him anything.